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Monday, October 21, 2013

DIY: The Very Best Banana Bread Recipe

There’s just something about fall that makes me want to
bake cookies and stuff.

I don’t even know why I wrote that. I am terrible
at baking cookies. Give me a cake or a
pie and I’m on it. Cookies make me
sad. So many failed attempts.

Anyway, there’s also just something about the fall that
makes me not want to eat bananas. Maybe
it’s because I feel less like eating healthy in the fall – putting on the
winter layer and all that. YES. That’s totally a thing. Maybe it’s because I’ve eaten bananas all
summer and I’m not really feeling them anymore.
Maybe it’s because bananas are sort of a tropical fruit, and I don’t
feel so tropical when it’s forty and drizzling outside. Or maybe it’s because I’m not a gorilla.

So on any given day we have all these bananas that I buy at
the store and two days later I haven’t eaten them and it’s way too much to ask
anyone in my home to eat something that they might have to work a little for,
like peeling a banana is sooooo hard you guys, and the bananas are already
over-ripe and I need to do something with them because it is a sin to waste
good food. There are starving children
in China, you know. And just down the road,
too. Ahem.

So guess what I do with these bananas, in the fall? You got it: I transform them into The Very
Best Banana Bread. I’ve done it twice
already this week. You’d think I’d learn
to stop buying bananas.

But I haven’t. So I
make banana bread. And right now you’re
going to join me.

So gather your ingredients, monkeys, and get on it. After one bite of this banana bread, you will
start buying bananas to rot on your counter too, just like me.

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c. flour. This is not a precious measurement. In Home Ec you learned how to scoop a heaping
cup of flour and scrape off the top to get a good measurement. This is not how things are done in the real
world. Just scoop it, shake off the
excess, and forget about being perfect for once.

2/3 c. sugar. White, addicting, refined-beyond-all-nutritional
value sugar. Why a person would bake
without sugar is beyond me. If I
couldn’t have sugar I’d die. Coincidentally,
I’ll probably die because of all the sugar I eat.

2 t. baking powder. It’s the stuff in the canister. Get it straight, quick, because pretty soon
you’re going to need its cousin.

½ t. baking
soda. It’s in the orange box! Or if you’re me, and buy all generic
ingredients, it has your store logo on it.
What? Generic is the new black.

¼ t. salt. Regular salt, people. Stay with me.

1 c. ripe
banana. This is about 2 or 3 regular
sized bananas. Truthfully, once I used
four, and no one was the wiser. I’m not
sure that banana bread cares about how banana-y it tastes.

1/3 c. butter. You can use margarine for this, but who would
do such a thing? My rule is: if you have
butter, use butter. Or, more to the
point: Use butter if you’re not a jerk.

2 T. milk. I know, this ingredients list is getting
long. It’s really not that much
stuff. You probably have all these ingredients at home anyway, so stop complaining.
We’re almost done.

2 eggs. Just borrow them from your neighbor.

Optional: ¼ c.
chopped nuts. If you use nuts I’m not
eating it. Also optional: ¼ to ½ c.
chocolate chips. If you use chocolate
chips you are my hero. I usually use chocolate chips; that means that I am my own hero.

Got ‘em all, right?
Had ‘em all in your cupboard, right?
I’m telling you, you may never eat a banana on its own again. Keep reading and you’ll see why:

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a loaf pan. A regular one,
okay? Like 8x4x2. Go the extra mile and sprinkle some sugar to
coat the greased pan. I always grease
with butter, even though I hate the mess of it.
Adding the sugar makes up for it.
I lie. It totally doesn’t. But I like to sugar coat my loaf. Yeah. That’s
what *I* said.

In a big mixing bowl combine 1 c. of the flour, the rest of
your dry ingredients, the banana, butter, and milk. Go ahead and mix that up with your mixer on
low until it’s blended, and then shoot it up to high speed for a couple of
minutes. Add the eggs and the remaining
flour and beat that until it’s all blended.
Don’t be a chump; scrape the sides of the bowl. After you’ve licked the beaters (salmonella
be damned), stir in the nuts if you don’t know what’s good or chocolate chips
if you do. Refrain from eating the whole
bowl of batter with a spoon. Pour the
batter into the greased loaf pan before you lose your resolve.

This picture is the grossest. Did you know too-ripe bananas were so disgusting?Oh, you did?Yeah. Me too.

So this is how I measure chocolate chips. I put two handfuls like this in the batter. It's times like these that I wish someone were around to say:"I'll give you fifty bucks if you stuff all those chocolate chips in your mouth at once." I would be a billionaire.

Look how the sugar sparkles. That's some magic right there.

Bake it in the oven for one hour or until a toothpick stuck in
near the center comes out clean. That’s
60 minutes for all you international bakers.
Cool on a wire rack. When it’s almost
cool, flip the bread out of the pan and onto the rack (about twenty minutes). Cool completely, and wrap it in plastic to
store for a few hours or overnight before you slice it. I don’t know what happens if you don’t wrap
it up before you slice it. Does it fall
apart like a meat loaf? Does it taste
nasty? Does it slap you in the face for
omitting this step? I don’t know. But I always wrap my loaf before I slice it,
and it’s never let me down. Do you know
what else? I also store it in the
fridge. Crazy!

If you don't think that's glorious then I don't know you.

The next morning, you will have fantastic banana bread that
you can serve for breakfast instead of the pop tarts that have become a staple
in your home. Your family will hail your
baking expertise. Why, Martha Stewart
herself might even call you up and ask you to do a segment on an upcoming show
about different ways to cook with bananas.

Probably not. Martha
is pretty choosy with her baking experts, and this is just banana bread. But you will know that you have accomplished
greatness. And as long as there are
rotting bananas on your counter, you can repeat this particular success until
your last day on earth.

But seriously: why isn’t anyone eating these bananas? And why do I keep buying them?

I KNOW. We don't even keep gorillas.

(I adapted this recipe
from an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that my mother-in-law gave to
me. I also have one from the 50s, inherited
from my great-great aunt. That version has
some of the grossest recipes and pictures on earth. Sometimes, just for kicks, I tell my kids that I'm making select recipes from it for dinner. Man, I love having kids.)

I haven't cut it yet, but I feel like I didn't add enough. Getting the right amount of chocolate chips is an important skill to master. Also eating them by the handful is a talent that everyone should cultivate.

I like the IDEA of baking. And I like the final product. I don't like that I can bake something and one day, it's manna from heaven, and the next time, it looks and tastes like someone sneaked garbage in it while I was licking the beaters.

You know, we always have peanut butter chips on hand - they're my daughter's favorite - and she suggested it. I said No Way - I didn't think it would taste good at all. And once again, I should probably listen to my children more.

It's an old recipe - from the 80s, and it's changed quite a bit from then to now. I don't know what it is about letting bananas go to rot. Maybe it's a subconscious thing - our deepest desire is for banana bread, and that keeps us from eating the fruit on its own. Yeah - I'm going with that.

I love banana bread, but my family eats bananas way too fast so I never get to make it. Maybe I'll leave that picture of the gross bananas near them in hopes they will be so grossed out they won't eat the bananas. Think it'll work?

Ah, yes...banana bread. I love it...my family is "meh" about it. But chocolate chips...why, WHY did I never think of this??? Now I can't wait to make it again! I'll bet even the boys will be somewhat excited for it if I throw the choc chips in!! Mmmm... :)

My family loves banana bread so I am always searching for fab recipes. This looks great to try, just for the commentary alone. A quick tip I do with all my nana recipes... I mash up my rotties before adding them in... they mix up better. Can to wait to try this!